Leaders from Vanderbilt’s Government and Community Relations joined hundreds of community members from across Nashville recently to celebrate nonprofit heroes.
The Center for Nonprofit Management presented the 2022 Salute to Excellence Awards on Oct. 20 at Belmont University’s Fisher Center, where the work of dozens of local nonprofits was showcased and recognized. The event marked a return to an in-person celebration after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nathan Green, vice chancellor for government and community relations at Vanderbilt University, and Terry Vo, external affairs manager at Comcast, chaired the event, which was sponsored by Vanderbilt and PNC Bank.
“This is one of the oldest awards ceremonies for nonprofit leaders in the country. Nashville is fortunate, because a lot of communities don’t have a Center for Nonprofit Management that can help assist other nonprofits,” Green said. “It’s why Nashville does so well in meeting the needs of its communities.”
The event featured a reception and the awards ceremony hosted by NewsChannel 5 anchor Rhori Johnston.
Throughout its 29-year history, the ceremony has featured more than 600 nonprofit finalists and awarded more than $3.5 million to exemplary recipient organizations and their leadership. This year’s finalists for the event’s 12 prestigious awards represented 34 organizations selected by panels of community volunteers. Each award had its own unique panel to review nominations based on specific criteria and then select the finalists and winner.
The celebration was a chance for Vanderbilt to recognize the excellent work of organizations in Nashville’s nonprofit community, said Green and Midori Lockett, chief community impact officer for Vanderbilt’s Division of Government and Community Relations.
“This is a key sector of the community that makes our city flow and work. It’s important to celebrate the important contributions of our nonprofits,” Lockett said. “They do such great work. They deal with some of the major social issues in our community.”
Lockett recently joined the Center for Nonprofit Management’s board, a position that will enable her to help Vanderbilt further engage with nonprofit communities.